®TMark -- WHATwill they think of next?
®TMark is a brokerage that benefits
from "limited liability" just like any other corporation; using this
principle, ®TMark supports the
sabotage (informative alteration) of corporate products, from dolls and
children's learning tools to electronic action games, by channelling
funds from investors to workers for specific
projects grouped into
"mutual funds."
®TMark is indeed just a corporation,
and benefits from corporate protections, but unlike every other corporation,
its "bottom line" is to improve culture, rather than its own pocketbook;
it seeks cultural profit, not financial. For starters, see
The Mutual Fund Model,
Curation, and
Frequently Asked Questions.

The Corporate Law Fund
--
The projects in this fund challenge the legal rights and powers that
corporations have arrogated over the years. Many of these projects focus
on corporations' status as full persons, obtained via an 1886 U.S. Supreme
Court--SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO.,
118 U.S. 394--ruling based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution, which was ratified to protect the rights of freed slaves.

The Biological Property Fund
-- The projects in this fund are aimed at corporations that scavenge the earth's
biomes and human bodies for valuable genes, with only the most mercenary
consideration for the long term social, health and environmental consequences
of their actions. Some of these projects focus on the well-known dangers of
letting corporations steer and shape scientific research. Other projects call
attention to the way that biotechnology P.R. shifts public attention away from
corporate damage to the environment and society by brandishing absurdly
simplistic solutions, e.g. "better genes" that in fact only benefit
corporations.

The Intellectual Property Fund
--
This is a stable and reliable fund with a diversity of risk, specifically
tailored to the youth market, and all projects focus on copyright and
trademark issues. The Intellectual Property Fund is managed by
Negativland, who have an extensive
history of activism against copyright abuses and are very strong cultural
producers in their own right.

The Media Fund
--
For reasons of situation, this high-risk fund has tremendous potential
yields. The Media Fund is managed by Andrei Codrescu, who has consistently
produced oppositional cultural dividends in various contexts, from the
poetic to the cinematic. His current position as commentator for National
Public Radio completes his exceptional qualifications for this position.

What the World
Wants -- and How To Pay For It Using Military Expenditures
was a project of the World Game Institute.

What the World
Wants presents a 2-dimensional chart measuring 34-by-23 minus 2
little cubes represents "annual costs of various global programs for
solving the major human need and environmental problems facing
humanity. Each program is the amount needed to accomplish the goal
for all in need in the world. Their combined total cost is
approximately 30% of the world's total annual military
expenditures." 1 cube equals $1 billion. The total chart contains
780 cubes representing annual world military expenditures of $780
billion. Below the chart is the following table.

Eighteen Strategies for Confronting
the Major Systemic Problems Confronting Humanity:

Killing Hope contains 55 chapters spanning interventions
throughout the world from 1945 to 1994 and three appendices,
the third of which lists 40 U.S. government assassination plots
of prominent foreign individuals since the end of WWII.

If you believed that the NATO (read U.S.) bombing of Yugoslavia for
78 days and nights in 1999 was a "humanitarian" act, Rogue
State hopefully can serve as a wake-up call to both your intellect
and your conscience. It is a mini-encyclopedia of the numerous
un-humanitarian acts perpetrated by the United States since the
end of the Second World War.

"Critics will call this a one-sided book. But it is an
invaluable corrective to the establishment portrait of
America as the world's greatest force for peace. Even
confirmed opponents of U.S. interventionism can find
much in this important book that will both educate and
shock them."
--Peter Dale Scott,
former Professor at UC Berkeley,
poet,
and author, Deep Politics and The Death of JFK

"explores the underlying factors that have engendered a US strategy
of indirect intervention in Third World countries through alliance
with drug-trafficking proxies. This strategy was originally evolved
in the late 1940s for the containment of Communist China; it has
been resorted to since to secure control over foreign petroleum
resources. The result has been a staggering increase in the global
drug traffic and the mafias assorted with it, a problem that will
worsen until there is a change in policy. The book traces also some
of the processes by which some of these covert interventions have
escalated into war, and how present strategies to support the US
dollar have come to depend on US domination of the global oil
economy."

Local Currency Groups in the Americas
(i spoke with Susan Witt on 3/18/99 asking about the home
page's statment "last updated: 04-18-98". She explained
there has been more recent updates inside but not on the
home page. They continue to prepare more content to
be presented on their site and she expects the
Local
Currencies listing to be updated within the new few
months or less. --ratitor)

Essential reading by Dr Mae-Wan Ho (M.W.Ho@open.ac.uk)
"Science is not bad, but there is bad science.
Genetic engineering is bad science working with
big business for quick profit against the public good."

The Prince of Wales -- Speechs: Seeds of disaster, 6/8/98
RH the Prince of Wales, who farms organically, says
the genetic modification of crops is taking mankind into
realms that belong to God, and God alone.

DOT Issues Rules to Make Drivers Licenses into National ID
Card.
The US Department of Transportation issued a proposed
rule
on June 16, 1998 requiring that all states issue new drivers licenses
that use the SSN, and limit govt transactions to those with appoved id cards.
Letter
from Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) opposing the
proposal. Barr and Paul have introduced
H.R.
4217, the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act of 1998 repeals
the rules.

The Boston Globe's 3-day series on "Corporate Welfare," 7/7-9/96:
"As Richard Grossman has aptly pointed out, we should not adopt
the term 'corporate welfare' because we are not against welfare
for the blind, the lame and the halt. We are against SUBSIDIES
TO THE CORPORATIONS AND THE WEALTHY. We are against SUBSIDY
ABUSE." --Peter Montague

"Nominated for an Academy Award for 1996 Best Documentary,
Tell the
Truth and Run, the dramatic story of muckraking journalist George
Seldes (1890-1995), is a piercing examination of American journalism. . . .
Tell the Truth and Run raises fundamental questions about the recorded
history of the Twentieth Century; about freedom, fairness and diversity
in the media; about power and abuse of power; and about public
citizenship and the democratic process."
Learn about/help expand the
PBS campaign
to get more stations to screen this film on PBS television.

If your local public TV station is on
the broadcast list,
consult the web page periodically to find out when the broadcast is
scheduled. (There's other neat stuff
on the web page.) If the film is
not yet scheduled on your local public tv station, you might encourage
them to schedule it soon. (You can find the name, address, phone, fax
and e-mail of your local public television station at
http://www.pbs.org/stations/ )
If your local public TV station is NOT on
the above list,
you can contact the station's program director by phone, fax, letter
or e-mail:

let him/her know you understand that APS has offered the station
the opportunity to broadcast the Academy Award-nominated documentary
feature Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press; and

ask if they have plans to broadcast it; if not, urge them to take
another look; APS can send screening cassettes to stations upon request.

language [references]:

biobliofind
Nine million used, antiquarian and rare books, periodicals and
ephemera offered for sale by thousands of booksellers around the
world make this the largest and most interesting bookselling
site on the Web.

The Open Source Page
Open Source: the Future is Here
Open-source software is an idea whose time has finally come. For
twenty years it has been building momentum in the technical cultures
that built the Internet and the World Wide Web. Now it's breaking out
into the commercial world, and that's changing all the rules. Are you
ready?